The Old Cowpunchers Song

May 21, 2020.

A damp afternoon outside, following consecutive days of really wet outside, helped set the scene that contributed to the composition of a new song. It has been more than 8 months without writing lyrics upon any subject. You know how life is, of your own living. The social environment that we live within or beside, probably more than any other factor, logically seems to shape those inner motivations, moods in particular, allowing reactions to the daily stimuli. The repressive weather keeping the feelings of "trapped in isolation," seems strongly influential in the least. Yet, behind this vale, unexpected ideas can spring forth, altering the senses to raise the psyche up and above this stirred up mud of dirt, water and idiotocracy. Sometimes it seems alarming how swiftly change can occur.

The weather condition beyond the walls combined with a will to step out of the new normal in an afternoon, found me looking toward movies as a distraction early in this particular Thursday afternoon. I had attempted to watch the film, the ballad of Buster Scruggs, which I found quite amusing. During the early portions of the story, (that is as far as I've gotten, due to the events described here after) truly unexpected events occur. The movie begins with a song, sung by whom it seems is the starring character, exuding a distinct sense of humor in sarcasm, at least that was my impression at the time. By the end of the third or fourth scene, the cowboy gun slinging singer, shot dead, produces his angelic wings and whilst narrating the story-line, flies off into a cloudy blue sky. The juxtaposition in the scene, going from starring character to flying off into the sky, angel like, wings slowly flapping out an ascent, within these early scenes, struck an inner cord within. As I do often, while watching video presentations, I pause the player in order to do something else for a few moments, in order to keep up with the story. So on this occasion I did just that, pause. This time it was to refresh the dwindling fire in the wood stove. As I opened the door of the stove to view its status, my mind strayed off into one of those spontaneously occurring thoughts that often distract my attention. Is it ADHT or the universe supplying something without clear notification? I can't say with specificity what it is, yet it seems to me to be the latter of the two.

The thought was very simple, quite related in some off kilter way to an impression derived of the film's content, yet not really of its substance. "Back in the day where the cowpunchers roamed," were the words shaping my thought, as I looked into the wood stove. Curious, I thought, as I placed another piece of wood into the stove, shut its door, turning to regain my seat before returning to the film. Just that fast, only seconds of time, forced by some unknown condition, my day, the thoughts, the inspirational unknowns, caused a pivot from action A, toward action B. I went from pleasantly being mindlessly, watching entertainment supplied via a movie, to the shaping of a new song.

I stopped before regaining my previous seat, left the film in pause mode, when I stopped long enough to think, is this something, when another line of words formed up in thought, complementary to the line previously stated. In that moment I recognized a familiar situation, deciding to grab at the opportunity, I turned, returned to the computer, opened the word processor and away it went. The afternoon being creatively engaged by the muse.

I wrote out that first couple of lines, then a couple more, as though the words fell from the sky or something. There seems to be little force or deliberate shaping of its content while this kind of process occurs. I am present, yet it happens sort of like magic, poof, there it is, on the monitor's screen. This one could be considered as sort of a ballad, maybe, however, pigeon holing genre, I can leave to others.

Now, I have lost an ability to play guitars, my main instrument for more than 50 years, thus I turned to the piano to figure out the musical shape these lyrics induce. I had an imaginary image in my head when I lifted the keyboard cover to access the keys. It is clearly a cowboy country song, sparked in a way by the cowboy theme of the movie I had begun watching. I use a metronome to solidify a tempo that will shape the ideas of music. Clearly I knew that this would be in 3/4 time, like so many of the traditional cowboy songs. Then maybe that itself is also something of my imagination? I know however, that I made this piece in 3/4 time. The piano remains rather unfamiliar territory where I lack an ability to be fluent. So I struggle in playing it. But I pounded out a structure that supports these lyrics, to satisfactorily shape these ideas into song, and I started singing the lyric. What used to take brief minutes with a guitar, now took well over an hour with the piano, but I succeeded. It is the first time I composed a song with a piano. It is not the instrument that makes the song however. My own experience shows that the song makes its own music.

I played at it for a couple of hours, trying to keep my fingers coordinated enough toward pressing unfamiliar places in correct sequences, it remains a struggle for me, still. When I began, the idea shaped up in the key of Ab. I played through it a couple of times before I recognized the ridiculousness of playing in Ab, so after a little experimentation, I settled into playing it in the key of G, for the sake of simplicity. After that, I knew I should make a rough draft recording to prevent full loss of the melody due to a leaky brain, where memory should exist, yet often fails me.

Having put all the recording gear away a month ago, I had to re-assemble the pieces, and choosing to use a condenser mic for capture, required a different type of stand as well as mic placement, all unfamiliar because I've not previously tried recording my lacking piano abilities. Eventually that too found enough success to preserve the idea while it remained alive and active in my head. And that, is the story of how "The Old Cowpunchers Song," came to be.

And by the way, while I write this, I have yet to see the remainder of this film, and it is nearing a full day later. It is likely that today, I will return to start it again, as it seems that I only saw 15 minutes of its duration. Happily, I found the film quite pleasant and entertaining.

 

Edit in:

Yesterday, August 5, 2021 I released the recording of this song, https://thomasepeterson.com/mp3/Old-Cowpunchers-Song.mp3, give it a listen if you choose.

An Update of Publishing

I suppose it was yesterday when I did a rather complete review of previous posts here.  In the process I found a few songs written about in here had not been linked in order to allow your listening to them.  At that time I connected links in the website to the blog, and now I will do the reverse, connecting the blog to the individual tunes available.  The problem being I didn’t make a physical list to work with now. I can now make a list and enter said links below, hopefully not duplicating what had previously been addressed.

First is the song, The Megaphone.  It was published yesterday, April 1, 2020. The song was written about in this post and is now available to listen to at the following: www.thomasepeterson.com/mp3/The_Megaphone-b.mp3.  Now I choose to state here, that this song does include a rough lead guitar track, that I can not correct at present having an inability to play stringed instruments currently.  There is a problem with the index finger on my left hand :( which has stopped functioning correctly.

Awaken, written of in this post, is available to listen to at the following: www.thomasepeterson.com/mp3/Awaken.mp3

Blue-eyed Boy written of in the first half of this post, is available to listen to at the following:<a href="www.thomasepeterson.com/mp3/Blue-Eyed-Boy.mp3.

In This World So Blue, written of in this post is available to listen to at the following: www.thomasepeterson.com/mp3/In_This_World_So_Blue.mp3.

Now having the malfunctioning finger, I seem less inspired to write songs.  At present, I have no idea how music will unfold in the tomorrows to come or if it shall cease for me.  I am currently working toward learning to play piano, which has a potential for one day being a go to instrument for me, but at present the piano is far from what I know. 

Thanks for checking in, be safe in these world wide troubling times.  My best to everyone everywhere.

The Megaphone

It was June 20^th when the muse last paid a visit, granting me another song to share with the world.  Song writing remains very mysterious to me because of how the seeming events unfold.  For the most part the resultant effort in this past event, seems or otherwise feels as though I, the human within this body, was not present and involved.  I can recall portions of the experience, yet in this moment I am unable to recognize and or recall what I will refer to here as the enzyme causing it to erupt.  I do recall being in my living room in movement, walking past the end of my couch, when the flood of word and inspiration struck, which in turn stopped my forward progression to briefly pause then abruptly pivot 180 degrees with a thought that there was something here to capture.  This type of situation has struck me many times over the years under differing circumstances, causing me to quickly get to the computer enabling the capture of what seems magical.

Soon there after, I found myself before the word processor’s screen, engaged in writing an impression of this thought flood.    In the flood was an auditory influence that had a shape of its own, illusionary holding the words to its shape in both pitch and cadence.  I wrote out 7 lines of text, containing two separate forms, before grabbing up my guitar to actually find the shape of audio provided beside or with the words.  After a bit of fumbling with notes on the fretboard the pitch resolved as an AA (the second A below middle C on a piano or, an open A string on a standardly tuned guitar), and from there the guitars standard A first position was established, being the key for the piece.  The  entire musical phrase for the verse quickly took an understood shape, where as shifting into the chorus was a less fluid process, with some intuitive searching for the shape of it, I experienced a couple of stutters along the way, as finding the shape of this chorus seemed illusive for some time.  I played through my impression a few times yet, there was a flaw, as the resolution from this progression (in a D) back to the AA was impossible.  I then realized the solution, a somewhat different play in the chord structure of the chorus.  As fast as a spark, the chorus had its shape, allowing me to sing the words I’d written.  

At that point, I put the guitar down and concentrated on the lyrics.  The muse was still alive in me, allowing the words to flow out effortlessly.  From beginning to end the song was written completely along with its composition in what must have been less than 15 minutes.  Taking to the guitar again, I began singing the lyric with its accompaniment, smiling along the way, having an impression of the song’s essence solidifying in my mind.  Yet experience has shown that at this point in time, I could easily have a lapse in my memory as to this song’s true essence. 

Thank you Linux OS for the ease with which it has become handy to record raw audio.  I turned the system on (Ardour), set up the inputs for the microphones and recorded a rough draft to preserve what was in the moment, raw thought inside my head.  It worked flawlessly.  I now had the new song captured in essence, and after a Save As and giving the file a name, I had a new song. 

With a raw copy stored and a feeling of accomplishment in the unexpected, with the muse lurking somewhere overhead in the ethers of being I happily began the process of properly recording this new song.  I opened the drumming software (Hydrogen) and with my mechanical metronome, determined a fitting tempo.  I then input this number into the software and set to making a very basic drumming pattern with just a bass drum on the 1, 3 and the backbeat snare at 2, 4.  With  this pattern running in the background I then recorded the piece over, in its entirety with this to hold the tempo while re-recording.  This produced a better impression of the song.  I then began composing a bass track to glue the tune into its form.  After hooking up the electric bass guitar into the system a multi step process due to lacking a bass amplifier here, I recorded a bass track beside what was previously done.  Fact is I am less than proficient enough at playing the bass, to create a usable bass track.  I could overcome this were I to play the instrument but… that is not in my card deck now.  I can play it well enough to use the recorded track as a template for creating a good midi bass track.  I did both of these things to create a good bass track for the recording.  Upon completion of the bass track in midi, I then switched back to the drumming software to create a drum track that might do more than hold the tempo, one that could add too and compliment the song, fitting beside the bass.  From the moment of inception to near done, I had a reasonably completed song in under 2 hours.  To me, amazing.

Since then I have done only a little bit of work to this recording as other demands had to take precedence.  I had a scheduled performance of 2.5 hours, 5 days hence and had great need to practice and rehearse, having excluded most public performances for well over a year.  And the beat goes on.

Follow the Muse

Saturday, July 28, 2018 allowed a new song’s creation. This came about toward the end of my normal morning routine. I’d completed a morning review of the credible news that I prefer from the traditional sources provided on the internet. Weekends usually offer less viable news, thus the time it took to review the content, seemed brief. Living in my mind, forming thoughts that can formulate plans where none may prioritize my action for a day, or better stated as living in the moment, is the methodology I regularly utilize and prefer.

Having done this, while drinking my usual dose of strong coffee to wipe away the lingering slumber of night and sleep, a decision as to what to do next entered my thoughts. The possibilities are truly endless, yet I am rather set in habitual patterns, where mornings and plans come together. Because I seldom plan what I’ll do with days, the habits come into play quite often. This day followed that course for a short time after completing the news review. I then turned toward listening to the prerecorded music of others, of my own choosing. It is seldom that I allow the choices of others (radio etc.) to determine what I’ll allow to fill my space, as I prefer making my own choices as to what may influence my day, because sometimes doing so will alter its mood. For me, music can sometimes strongly influence and temper how my day evolves.

The previous evening I had chosen a course, deciding to learn another song, written and performed originally by Bob Dylan, "Just Like a Woman." I had been inspired by viewing the dvd, "A Concert for Bangladesh," where as, having seen Bob’s rendition with the group on hand for that occasion, I paused the player, to learn the song for myself. In doing so that evening, I had called up the song from his album "Blond on Blond," to my media player in order to review its original form and to study its structure. Unknowingly, this sequence of events set up the circumstances that allowed this new song’s creation the following morning.

Thus after completing the news review that morning, I opened my preferred media player, Amarok. It had in its memory the single song " Just Like a Woman" retained in its playlist from that previous nights application. Seeing this, the thought to again fill the room with the presence of Bob’s recordings, yet wishing to add to the play list, I called up a new songlist of Dylan recordings, including the album "Modern Times." The media player went through many songs while I prepared and ate a breakfast, when I again found myself sitting here listening, the track "Thunder on the Mountain," was playing when, near the end of said track, a trigger in thought occurred. In an instant, this caused me to shut down the music, to open a word processor and I let words begin forming in my head, typing them into the computer.

I began writing out the words that came to mind. In those moments, I followed the slate of inspiration. It lacked any preconceived idea as to what might form. The only thing I understood in those moments, were that those words "thunder on the mountain," separate, standing alone, hold a somewhat iconic theme for me. It is sourced in my own life’s experience. I have experienced lightening and its thunder on mountains well above timberline. At that time being there in that situation provided a potent experience that conjured up survival instinct, leaving an altered sense of awe in its wake. Even so I lacked a desire to express that situation in any way. Also, in thought was my desire to remain fully separated from either the words or expression I’d just heard in Bob’s song. I wrote out lines, a full verse worth of them, then paused to review and alter them. At present, memory has little recall as to the content of those lines. I knew that I wanted to shape an idea that could express a personal core value in regard to our shared environment, that which we all in some way share commonly, this earth and foremost, the alarming trends that I notice.

Upon editing those first few lines, a shape and direction began to jell. I have heard thunder and have noted in its presence what could be termed as anger or in this instance, rage. It could be that the human response to the immediacy of lightening and its associated thunder, is what caused ancient humans to consider the existence of there being something much more powerful than they. Knowing nothing of the physical forces displayed during these weather events, I suppose the alarm of being in its presence was the cause for what is now known as a God. However; this is not my point, nor is the content of what came there after in my writing. The first line evolved then, into, "I’ve heard that the thunder, has to loose its rage." In this case the word rage might be a reflection on my own reaction to being in its presence in high elevation places, where the threat of lightening’s force, I personally recognized as, immense. With this alteration and some others in those initial lines of verse, a direction for the song took hold. Even so, I was without any clear intention as to the sought destination of their collective expression. The first line here (although unknown at the time) is used only as texture for what was to be this vignette of words, that in the moment of conception possessed no music or even a hint there in.

Now for certain, there is no deliberate "other person," in the words of this lyric. It is my understanding of the importance of interpersonal relationships, which brings another person into the story. I believe doing so provides a place that others may be drawn into, as we humans instinctively associate ourselves as being, a part of the whole. And with this comes an understanding of our own mortality, a condition that in my own aging, tends to hold a distinct significance. We will all eventually pass from what we know as living, and go on to what ever comes there after, something or nothing. Since I neither know the answer to that unstated question, or possess desire to instill it into this song, I have simply referenced it via the imagery in, we may, "feel age."

From this point in the process, a contextual situation is created by the introduction of a commonly understood yet hypothetical location, that being, in the mountains. Now observations from the observer’s view begin to form, bringing the thunder back into play as a shared experience. The effect of our relationships in and on this planet are employed here through the use of imagery. I brought birds and the season of spring in at this point because both have the potential to be an influence and be influenced, in our lives.

A separate set of ideas is then introduced as a chorus. It acknowledges some of the most basic things that make up our lives and the conditions which shape them, water, sun, the revolutions of our earth and time.

The song’s last two verses attempt to clearly bring the seasonal cycles in living here into play. Summers end, birds migrate, fall comes and the seasons change throughout our lives. Hopefully we can all find inspiration in living. For myself and so many others, singing is both a producer of happiness and of hope. Doing it by a campfire is even better!

Space Between

Listening and watching time go by while living life.  I realize it has been a long dry spell from writing here, yet within that lapse of time I have written a song.  I went as far as to begin writing a piece about that writing experience, that was then never completed.  Music remains high in my list of interests so I work at it every day for the most part.  There are days where I fail to touch an instrument though.  A couple of weeks ago life took me another direction with a dose of the flu bug.  I am still here! 

I have just begun playing and singing again post bug.  It seems I need more practice to stay and be in that magic space, than what used to be true.  The older brain seems to forget lyrics or even timing for moments.   In playing music, moments are all there is and we hope that it will flow smoothly, all while realizing the humanness of being.  Sometimes it works and sometimes, not so much. 

Last night I listened to some of my recordings still incomplete, just a review to jog the memory, seeing the names, hearing the various parts, and enjoying the experience.  It is somewhat exciting to hear some of these songs.  I am referring to songs that you have not heard.  Their representations are being created so that you may one day hear them, they are many and I can but hope I am able to complete this project.  Over this past fall and winter I experienced some very serious physical problems that forced me to stop playing the guitar for weeks at a time.  I made some changes to hopefully allow those neurological problems to fade away. 

Here in this room where I live most of my life, I am now again looking at what is only a very rough outline about writing the last song I wrote.  This song now has the name, Ode to Your Heart.  Now that I am looking back on the songwriting experience from such a long gap in time, that experience is rather blotted out, covered by the experiences since then.  January 18, 2018 was the day this song was created.  I must have had an unusual state of mind on this particular day, because, as this outline says, this song was deliberately written rather than it being a spontaneous response to impressions that come in thought, as though the universe is talking and I hear it, which leads to capturing those images, my normal way of writing.  For some time before this day, a period of maybe a couple of months, I had an idea about a song, yet without any type of structure at all.  It was the idea of using a womans name in a song.  The name I had concluded would have to be somewhat light, sweet, maybe lilting, I didn’t really know, the thought was one of more image than substance.   The character behind the name completely lacks meaning of any kind. By choice I decided that were this the name of a person I had any association with, ever, that name would be disqualified.  Thus on the day in question, the name came to me.  I should say a name that became the name used in this song.  Lilyan is the name. 

Soon after the name was realized, I came to the computer and began to write.  As is almost normal the song pretty much wrote itself.  I was present, aware and altering the words on the page.  They flowed smoothly into place.  I recall fighting with spelling the word, eerie.  Me and the dictionary in all of its forms, are less than good friends.  Yet I depend on spell check, for without that, you would not survive reading the attempted words.  The structure began as two verses and a chorus.  Actually these two parts seem to differ in apparent subject, while it is assumed that usages of the female name and the word 'she,' represent the same character.  After completion and review, I decided to begin this song with the chorus, then end it with the same.  I wrote this first, having previously just decided what the name would be.  I started with that word, Lilyan.  Lilyan, I found you, but then I changed that to: Lilyan, you found me, I was walking.  Actually here it does take the assumption I mentioned and voids that thought’s credibility entirely.  What wound up being the first line of verse, after several changes and shifting of its three and four word phrases, the verse evolved into, "I awoke the morning, sky an eerie dark, felt it crying, oo, oo, ooo..."  Yet I lack having an actual cognition of where that line came from, I mean the subject expressed.  Seemingly it has everything to do with the character speaking in first person.  The line sort of sets an overall tone which seems dark in nature.   Furthering the dark expression, I  stated  her to be missing, without any reference as to where or how this happened.  The expression then takes on the concern of those whom are affected by this missing status.   The second verse takes this expression deeper into this status of a missing person.   The song lacks any resolution to the conflicted, leaving the audience without any conclusion, then chorus repeats to close out the lyric.

I really should have taken the time to write this out when that described here in was fresh in real time.  So it goes.

****************post edit****************

February 4, 2020

The song Ode to your Heart has now been recorded and posted on the website, https://thomasepeterson.com/mp3/Ode-to-Your-Heart.mp3 

A New Song About Songs

Very odd circumstances can sometimes culminate in the creation of new songs. I had one of those experiences a while back. It was late morning, following breakfast, with the lingering of a kitchen mess drawing my attention toward clean-up, that I now note as the beginning of this unfolding. The house was still, in the quiet after going through the morning’s ‘catching up’ on the supposed news. Outside the wildfire smoke was intense enough that the windows were all closed up for my intension to keep the concentration of particulate out, increasing the silence within. I thought to change the ambiance by adding some music to sooth my mind as I began the task ahead. Turning on my computer’s music reproduction software, I contemplated the play-list displayed, a remnant of yesterday’s listening to old Neil Young albums. In that moment with the last two tunes of his Zuma album (from 1975) cued up and waiting while my desire wanted something different, yet these two songs could play without disrupting my mood. Still the task in the kitchen required greater duration of time than these two songs could cover, but what to set forth? I wanted something different, something other than playing through the set order of recorded albums. My usual method for selecting a play list is, calling up artists, looking through album names, then choosing among the albums in the data base. Instead of following this procedure, I chose to enter words into the search box. Happenstance guided what followed, in the search box, I typed the words, “hard times.” The database parsed out 11 artist names, in the ordered list containing those two words. I added the titles to the play list, clicked the play button, then back to the kitchen to begin washing the dishes.

With this musical set list now filling the space, I began the dish washing process. At least three days of dishes had accumulated since the last washing, yet the quantity was minimal. I waited for the sink to fill, adding the liquid soap, placing the neatly arranged bowls into the steamy water, while noting the music that set the mood, pleasant in its familiarity. That washing, rinsing, and placing of clean tableware into the drainer began in its normal manner as the second song, the last track of Zuma began. I’d not listened to this in years, it sounded like CSN&Y (I later looked into this to find that all of those guys participated in the recording). My thoughts flipped about, influenced by the music and the activity. As the name themed song titles progressed, my thoughts swayed to the influence, the singing of songs about hard times. By the time the list had tracked through and to Woody Guthrie’s song, "Hard Times," I began considering that all these songs are derived out of the historically hard times that these authors had lived through, or at least knew something of. With the influences of these various hard time themes reflecting in my thoughts, combined with my own ever present quest of creating new songs, I began considering a tale based in songs about hard times. The Guthrie song, being one from the Library of Congress Recording sessions, includes a conversational narrative portion of some duration. It was during this narrative that my mind skipped past the spoken, allowing a phrase of my own to build about songs of hard times. Looking back now, it seems as tho, Woody’s statement about the many songs he knew about hard times, must have influenced my trajectory of thought. So many songs about hard times. I’d just listened to many other songs with the theme, hard times. Everybody’s singing songs about hard times. All these people sang songs of hard times, so why not write a song about a few people who wrote songs about hard times, inclusive of something specific to their author. With the dish washing completed, I moved back to the computer to write out the idea.

Since I had concluded this topic viable for a song, I set upon writing the theme. I immediately wrote what is a sort of chorus, having six lines specific to the general theme, singing songs about hard times, then I went back to the music program to revisit the individual songs that sparked the idea. I began with Woody Guthrie, to derive the respective theme expressed in the song. There in I wrote a verse having to do with Mr. Guthrie. I went down the play-list revisiting all the tunes and researching to discover the author whom wrote these songs, rather than the recording artist listened to, for clarity in addressing who actually created the themes I'd been experiencing. From that point on, the process was quite simple, mechanical really, although it was inspired of my own passion.

Now, in reflection, I realize that this song came about through my deliberate attempt to write a song. This is a different methodology from the usual method I employ. More often than not, my own experience in creating songs has shown up through what I consider as the song finding me, or the universe gave it out, allowing me to catch it due to being receptive, which is not what happened during this song's creation. It worked out rather quickly, the writing and then establishing a musical theme that could support the lyrics. In truth, I believe I have found better songs through listening to that which is offered by the universe, than what this song amounts to. Even so, this was another song writing experience.

(Ben Bullington) The Friend I Knew But Never Had II

The song “(BenBullington) The Friend I Knew But Never Had,” has been recorded. I posted it on my website, yesterday. Now I am getting around to writing this. It has been a pretty good experience learning this song then recording it. Learning the recording equipment has been a kick too, so many possibilities. The following is quite evident if listened to with headphones. In this mix, , I separated the vocals totally. Then through the duration of the chorus, the vocal parts gradually switch sides, fully. For me this is a complete learning process that is fun in itself. During this enjoyable time, I am fulfilling my other goal, recording all the music I’ve written. Playing those 40 year old songs again is in itself a tour down memory lane, through the times in life and living it, with that occasional intersection with the muse. So if you find interest in song, this song in particular, click on that link above, as always on the Internet, the choice is yours to make.